Gloomhaven (Second Printing)

$3,999,795

40,642

Please take note: There are no late pledges.

If you missed the Kickstarter, don't worry! The game will be widely available in retail this August/September, so you can pick it up there!

It's time to join the adventure! Whether you are a veteran mercenary or this is your first foray into the wilds of Gloomhaven, I am happy to have you on board.

Through this Kickstarter, you can pledge to receive a copy of the second printing of Gloomhaven, complete with new health and experience trackers and a revised rule book and scenario book. Your game will come with miniatures for all the character classes, but you can also purchase extra sets of miniatures and standees.

If you already own the game, you can pledge to receive just the upgraded trackers and revised books. In addition, there is also an all-new mini expansion of 17 solo scenarios available.

If you want to learn how to play Gloomhaven, these two Gaming Rules! videos are all you need.

Gloomhaven is a series of tactical combat scenarios that are strung together in a persistent, thematic campaign.

Each scenario is played out through rounds of combat against fully automated enemies. In each round, players will play 2 cards to determine the order in which they act and what abilities they perform. Each card has 2 special actions, and on their turn, players can perform the top action of one card and the bottom action of the other.

Card actions are varied and powerful, cutting through the monotony of a basic "move and attack" system. Default actions are available, though, if a player's plans get ruined by an enemy's ability card or even by the actions of their own teammates. Gloomhaven eliminates the alpha player through simultaneous hidden action selection to illustrate the chaos of battle.

Photo courtesy of Jinha Yoon

There are also no dice in Gloomhaven. Instead, attacks are modified by a player's attack deck. Over time, this attack deck will change as a player begins to add and remove cards by completing battle goals and leveling up, which will also give them access to more powerful, higher level ability cards.

In midst of battle, players will also need to focus on looting money tokens. These can be used to purchase useful items in town, where new stock is always being unlocked by player actions.

As players interact with the town through events and move along the branching story paths of the world, they will always be working towards completing personal quests. By meeting certain objectives, a player's character will retire, unlocking a new character class to play with, new events for parties to encounter, and additional perks for the achieving player. After retirement, a player will create a new character, possibly from the class that was just unlocked, and continue the adventure!

Either way, the important thing is that, when you are ready, I want you to vote on what happens next. This campaign is being run by and for you, and I'm just excited to see where it goes!

But the extra adventures don't end when the Kickstarter ends! Starting in November of this year, after everyone has had time to receive their games and enjoy them for a while, we will starting a brand new community driven expedition.

The number of scenarios in the new expedition will be directly tied to this Kickstarter's funding goal. Every $100,000 past $2 million will add a new scenario to the expedition. It's going to be huge!

New to Kickstarter? No problem! The number people pledging to Kickstarter board game projects seems to be getting larger all the time, and we are happy to have you on board.
Becoming a backer is very simple. Just follow these steps:
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Step 1: Look through the banner at the top right of this page and click on the reward level you'd like to receive.

Step 2: Choose the correct shipping location and the pledge amount should automatically adjust to the correct value. This step is important!

Step 3: Click the green "Continue" button and then finish filling out your information on the subsequent page.

Step 4: Click "Pledge" and you're done! Welcome to the adventure!

Immediately after I was finished working on Gloomhaven, I realized I wasn't done with the world. I wanted to make a set of scenarios specifically designed for strategic solo play - scenarios that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each class and force players to really get under the hood and learn to play each class masterfully.

PDFs of these scenarios and the accompanying item rewards are already available online, but now you can pledge $10 to receive a printed version. This includes a 24-page scenario book of 17 all-new solo scenarios and a deck of 17 item cards - rewards for completing each of the missions.

The solo scenarios are not included in the base box, but you can add $10 to you pledge to receive them in addition.

Strictly for those who already own the game, we are offering four health and experience trackers and revised rule and scenario books. These are already included in the reprint pledge, but are upgrades from the original version.

You can get the four dials for $7, the upgraded books for $15, and if you'd like the solo scenarios as well, you can bundle all three offers for $25.

The second printing of Gloomhaven comes with a full set of miniatures for each of the 17 character classes. These add-ons are not needed, but if, for whatever reason, you want additional sets of miniatures or standees, you can add $20 to your pledge for additional sets of minis and $5 for additional sets of standees.

Be forewarned that while the miniatures box comes spoiler-free, the standees will be delivered as a single bare punch-board and may ruin the surprise of some of the unlocked character images.

Gloomhaven is a big, heavy game, so you will need to pay shipping on every copy that you order. The good news is that the cost of shipping to the US is already included and subsidized elsewhere. The price for shipping in other regions per game box is listed in the first column.

The second column is the price of shipping when ordering up to six other items (this includes sets of HP/XP dials, the book upgrades, the solo scenarios, sets of miniatures, or sets of standees). The upgrade combo pack is considered three items. If you pledge for more than six items, you will need to pay the second column shipping price again.

There's more good news, though. If you order a copy of Gloomhaven and want to add to your pledge the solo scenarios and/or a set of standees, those items are small enough to fit into the game's shipping box, so you won't have to pay any additional shipping on them - just the one shipping price for the main box itself.

All of these shipping costs are added automatically when you pledge, but if you add more onto you pledge for additional items, you will have to add the additional shipping costs yourself.

Unfortunately, I made some mistakes when setting up the initial pledge levels. If you live in the following countries, please use the alternate pledge levels (labeled DE and SG) to get the correct shipping price: Germany, Singapore, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Sorry for the confusion!

Please note! Shipping is US, Canada, China, and EU-friendly! You will not have to pay customs if you are in these regions.

While pledging $1 won't get your name into every copy of Gloomhaven, it will get you into my personal copy of Gloomhaven.

That's right, I am going to take a sharpie to as many of my components as necessary to commemorate the names of everyone who pledges $1 or adds $1 to their pledge. Not only that, but I'll shoot a video of the whole sordid, game-defacing thing. It will be wonderful.

Isaac is the driving force behind Cephalofair Games, which published its first game, Forge War, three years ago, and its second game, Gloomhaven, was released to much acclaim in February. Isaac also designed and developed these games and is basically a one-man publishing army. He writes a weekly blog about board game publishing, design and whatever else he is thinking about at www.cephalofair.com.

Isaac graduated two years ago with a physics PhD, but now works full-time designing and publishing games. He is very happy.

Josh McDowell started playing board games after his wife encouraged him to find an inexpensive hobby. The joke is on her, as that encouragement turned into an expansive collection and regular schedule of playing games with his friends. He turned to his graphic design prowess to offset the costs and is now completely engrossed in all things board games. He lives in Indiana with his wife and three young children, gamers in the making. You can find his portfolio at www.behance.net/mcscowl.

Alexandr lives in Ukraine, Odessa and works as a freelancer and specializes in several styles: sci-fi, cyberpunk and fantasy. He's looking for hard-core projects in the styles that he likes. Most of all he is proud of his artwork for cards in board games. He dreams to release his comics and develop the indie game with a small group of people In the future. You can see his portfolio at http://kotnonekot.deviantart.com.

James Van Schaik has over 20 years experience as a professional miniature sculptor. He has worked as a freelance sculptor, in-house staff sculptor and on several exclusivity contracts for a range of companies including Megacon Games, Ninja Division, Soda Pop Miniatures, Ral Partha, WizKids, Wyrd, Games Workshop, Pulp City, Battlefront, Gale Force 9, Dust Tactics, Mantic, Reaper, and RAFM.

Risks and challenges

Coming into this reprint Kickstarter, I am in the unique position of knowing exactly what it takes to publish this 21-pound monstrosity.

The experience of the first printing for me, Josh, and the factory will prove incredibly useful. We are proofing files as you read this, and we're hoping to get the printers fired up before the campaign even ends.

Though some components are being updated, and other components are being added, none of that will provide much of a delay at all. Based on the previous run, once the printing starts, we are expecting two months for production and two months for shipping, getting you your game in August if everything goes well.